Ex-Iranian President to Challenge Ahmadinejad?
The New York Times reports that former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami held a high-profile conference in Tehran on the topic of “Religion in the Modern World” on Monday, which some are construing could be his way of attempting to re-enter the political realm in order to run against President Ahmadinejad in next year’s elections. Khatami’s insists that the conference was entirely unrelated to electoral politics, but many seem to hope he is just bluffing; the international support he received at the conference, including Kofi Annan, former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi, former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio, demonstrated a level of support from the West that Ahmadinejad does not have. This kind of western presence has been extremely rare since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Khatami has publicly scrutinized Ahmadinejad’s political and economic performance, having been a much more moderate president in his years in office (1997-2005). He has not yet announced his candidacy or intent to run in the next election, despite pressure he has been receiving from political allies to help get the internationally unpopular Ahmadinejad out of office.
Kayla Cahoon
